Should Citizens Vote for Socialist Candidates

[Report on a debate between Edmund B. Osborne versus George H. Goebel, 7 March, 1921. Reprinted from the Single Tax Review, 1921]

Professor Arron C. Matthews acted as moderator and the audience was left to decide for itself whether they preferred the staunch idealism of Mr. Geobel as a means of political propaganda or the more practical program of Mr. Osborne.

On Sunday evening, March 7th, a de- bate on socialism occurred at the Strand Theatre, Newark, between Edmund Burke Osborne, the well known Single Taxer, and George H. Goebel, a prominent local Socialist. The question was whether it was to the interest of the working class to vote the Socialist ticket. Mr. Goebel contended that none of the old parties had anything to offer the working man, that they had failed in their pledges to carry out reforms in the interest of labor and that the best way for the working people to accomplish their ends was to stand solidly together and vote the straight Socialist ticket. He pointed to the labor legislation that had already been secured as due to the influence of the growing Socialist vote upon the old parties. Mr. Osborne, while in sympathy with the Socialist ideals, contended that it would be better for the working class if they united with one of the old parties on some practical measure of reform like public ownership of public utilities or the taxation of land values and the exemption of labor products, measures which, if taken one at a time, could be realized by concentrated effort. The Socialists however, were determined to keep their e3res fixed on the remote ideal, unwilling to reach the goal step by step as history shows all human progress has been realized.

The principle of competition in industry he believed to be sound and necessary for the best development. He favored experiments in cooperation such as cooperative stores and as soon as feasible, cooperative factories to train the people in this method of satisfying their wants and gradually fit them for a wider application of the principle.

The spirit of the debate was most friendly and the audience sympathetic to both contestants.